Hitachi Global Storage Technologies to invest $500 million in China

Emerging Markets Economy, Jun 21, 2004

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Monday announced its strategy to create a disk drive "mega manufacturing center" in Shenzhen, China. The new facility will represent an investment of up to $500 million when fully realized, and align disk drive final assembly with existing Shenzhen-based component manufacturing and an extensive supplier network. Hitachi expects the manufacturing center to employ nearly 7,000 people in its first phase to meet the growing demand for hard disk drives. The project, which initially includes construction of a 35,000-square-meter manufacturing facility, is expected to begin in Q4 2004.

The new facility is expected to start production of 3.5" disk drives in Q4 2005 and, ultimately, will be capable of producing disk drives of varying form factors, giving Hitachi GST the flexibility required to meet future demand in the traditional IT and consumer segments. It will employ state-of-the-art manufacturing processes that support the highly technical disk drive industry.

Dirk Thomas, who is vice president for Business Development and Strategy at Hitachi GST, will be named general manager of the new manufacturing facility. Thomas also will be named president of Greater China, a newly created position for Hitachi GST. In this position, he will lead Hitachi GST's Greater China operations, including its China-based manufacturing, and coordinate with Hitachi GST's customer service and support centers in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Taiwan.